Damascus hopes issue of Russian credit to Syria will be settled before yearend

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, July 22 (Itar-Tass) - Damascus hopes that the issue of Russian credit to Syria will be settled before the end of this year, Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said after the negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov here on Monday.

“We hope that the issue will be settled before the end of this year, the experts are discussing it now,” Jamil said. He added that he discussed this issue with Sergei Lavrov on Monday.

In reply to an Itar-Tass correspondent’s question about the amount of credit, the Syrian deputy prime minister noted that a credit can have “different sizes.” “We are still discussing it,” he noted.

“Russian-Syrian relations are being built up for the sake of peace in the region,” the deputy prime minister went on to say. In his words, Moscow and Damascus “agreed that a political settlement is needed to find the way out of the current situation.” “There is no other way except for a political solution,” the Syrian deputy prime minister stated.

Meanwhile, in the words of Jamil, Damascus and Beijing have identical positions as well. “Our political positions coincide and we value highly the position of the Chinese leadership in the settlement of the Syrian crisis,” he underlined.